On the western side of the Pennine Chain, up to this time, none of the secondary rocks superior to the Trias have been noticed north of the small patch of Lias at Audlem in Cheshire; therefore the discovery of a considerable tract of Lias near Carlisle will no doubt be interesting. For some years Mr. Richard B. Brockbank, of the firm of Messrs. Carr & Co., of Carlisle, has been diligently in search of coal, and has investigated the northern portion of Cumberland with considerable care. His attention was chiefly directed to the district lying between Curthwaite, on the Carlisle and Maryport Railway, and the Solway, especially about Aikton and Oughterby, places which Prof. Sedgwick had thought likely for finding coal, and where that eminent geologist had been informed that a coal-seam, of 16 inches in thickness, had been actually found*. The first place where Mr. Brockbank found the “blue metals” which had always been thought to be cal-measures was in the brook at Thornby. In examining them he found a shell resembling an Ammonite, and some other fossils, which induced him to think that the beds might prove to be Lias. On his transmitting, through Mr. Brockbank, engineer, of Manchester, the specimens to me, I immediately pronounced them to be Liassic. On the 13th January, 1859, being at Carlisle, Mr. R. B. Brockbank was so good as to drive me over the district. We first went to Moorhouse, near which place we saw the Till, of a reddish colour